Bonus: Killer drug: Fentanyl in Mexico and the US
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 7 February 2024
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Fentanyl is deadly. Thousands of Americans die every year from a drug overdose – the majority of them after using a synthetic opioid like fentanyl. It was developed as a legal, and effective, pain killer. Now, fuelled by insatiable US demand, it is illicitly produced in makeshift laboratories in Mexico by organised crime groups. In the first part, Assignment travels to the Mexican Pacific port of Manzanillo. This is one of the main entry points for the chemical ingredients required to make fentanyl. It is a town where Mexico’s powerful cartels have fought for control, and where the mayor lives under armed guard after a failed assassination attempt. In the second part, we cross the border into the US from Mexico to explore the devastation this lethal drug has left in its wake in San Diego County. Presenter / producer: Linda Pressly Producer: Tim Mansel Producer in Mexico: Ulises Escamilla
This Podcast was originally published in March 2023
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and |
| 0:02.0 | welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:04.0 | I'm Linda Presley |
| 0:06.0 | and last year I reported on a killer drug, Fentanyl. |
| 0:10.0 | It's made in Mexico and heavily consumed in the United States. |
| 0:14.0 | And now Fentanyl's back in the news. |
| 0:17.0 | Its tentacles have spread, |
| 0:19.0 | and the opioid crisis is beginning to heavily impact Mexico's own cities too, especially on the border. |
| 0:25.6 | So to bring you up to speed on the background to this highly addictive narcotic, |
| 0:30.0 | here, back to back, are those assignment documentaries produced by Tim Mansell and Ulysses Escamilla. |
| 0:37.0 | The first is from Mexico, the second from the US. |
| 0:48.6 | I'm Linda Presley, this is assignment on the BBC World Service and a warning. Some of you might find the stories in this programme upsetting because it's about a killer drug. |
| 0:54.8 | I smoked some and that's all I remember is pretty much just smoking and then waking up |
| 1:01.4 | and a bunch of EMTs around me, |
| 1:03.6 | emergency medical technicians. |
| 1:05.6 | We'll call this young woman, Susanna. |
| 1:08.0 | She overdosed on fentanyl, a synthetic opioid developed in the 1960s as a pain reliever and anesthetic. |
| 1:15.0 | Now it's killing drug users at an alarming rate. |
| 1:18.0 | Susanna was lucky. She survived. |
| 1:21.0 | I felt like I'd come back from the dead. |
| 1:23.0 | I felt like I had not been breathing for at least maybe a minute, maybe two. |
| 1:28.5 | It was very scary. |
... |
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